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annm4peace

(6,119 posts)
Wed May 2, 2012, 08:10 PM May 2012

Video of Minnesota Police getting people high on illegal drugs (coke/meth) and dropping them off.

MK Occupy Minnesota: Drugs & the DRE Program at Peavey Plaza

Published on May 2, 2012 by HongPong

Video documentation by local activists and independent media shows that police officers and county deputies from across Minnesota have been picking up young people near Peavey Plaza for a training program to recognize drug-impaired drivers. Multiple participants say officers gave them illicit drugs and provided other incentives to take the drugs. The Occupy movement, present at Peavey Plaza since April 7th, appears to be targeted as impaired people are dropped off at the Plaza, and others say they've been rewarded for offering to snitch on the movement.

Local independent media activists and members of Communities United Against Police Brutality began investigating police conduct around the Plaza after witnessing police dropping off impaired people at the plaza and hearing rumors that they were offering people drugs. We videotaped police conduct and interviewed participants, learning some very disturbing information about the DRE program.

Officers stated on record the DRE program, run by the Minnesota State Patrol, has no Institutional Review Board or independent oversight. They agreed no ambulances or EMTs were on site at the Richfield MnDOT facility near the airport where most subjects were taken. Multiple times, participants left Peavey Plaza sober, returned intoxicated, and said they'd been given free drugs by law enforcement. We documented on more than one occasion, someone being told they were sober by one officer, and then picked up by a different officer, and returning intoxicated.

(the report goes on further) [link:

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TheMadMonk

(6,187 posts)
6. Definitely outrageous and extremely questionable.
Thu May 3, 2012, 02:23 AM
May 2012

However, criminal is probably subject to considerable debate. Given how open the cops were (relatively speaking) about what they were doing, I'm sure there are plenty of bits of paper declaring this kosher.

And I do note that they spread the activities out over enough jurisdictions that the "test subjects" are safe from prosecution. Which does speak favourably to their claim that this is (primarily at least) about educating officers.

The reasoning behind the program even makes a certain amount of sense. (For a given value of sense and lack thereof on the part of the cops.) Cops do need to know how to recognise the outward symptoms of inebriation BEFORE they rise to the level of hospitalisation or "Some crazy, drug fucked nutter going balistic."

Even the choice of location for pickup and dropoff is going to be dictated by where peoples are at. Much the same reason Occupy chose to occuply that place.

HOWEVER, using subjects as informats THAT definitely crosses lines, but even so, it's not exactly a surprise is it?


All told though, this is probably not a worthwhile path to pursue police misbehaviour down. Best case, it might be possible to shut the program down, but no one's going to get into any great trouble over it, unless you can produce an overdose or two dumped in a skip.


It's not that this is right. It's just that it's insufficiently wrong, and seems to make just enough sense, in the eyes of those who run the show (and the public in general), for kicking up a stink to have any useful impact on the more important question of harmful police misbehaviour in general. It just devalues legitimate complaints when they occur and it's not until something as egregious as a cop CASUALLY STROLLING down a line of students with his can of milspec mace that anyone pays attention.

Bjorn Against

(12,041 posts)
2. I just posted this at pretty much the same time you did
Wed May 2, 2012, 08:49 PM
May 2012

I really hope this story gets some traction, this crime needs to be exposed.

 

panopeagenerosa

(44 posts)
3. not surprising
Wed May 2, 2012, 08:50 PM
May 2012

I've been wondering if the drug war confidential informants would be tasked with other sorts of domestic intelligence gathering eventually. I guess they've run out of DWCIs so now they're attempting to recruit random individuals. Kindof like the STASI when you think about it. That cool young person with the good dope might be working off a drug bust by spying on your Occupy group. If they suggest you try black bloc tactics then you'll know for sure.

zeemike

(18,998 posts)
4. I guess it is like Nixon said
Wed May 2, 2012, 11:26 PM
May 2012

If the president (or the cops in this case) do it is not illegal...after all who is going to arrest them?

annm4peace

(6,119 posts)
5. I've sent an email to my state Rep and Senator.
Wed May 2, 2012, 11:29 PM
May 2012

As you can imagine I am beyond angry about this. i have worked at a psych and drug hospital in Central Ca back in the 90s and worked with young adults at this hospital as well as chronic mentally ill adults who were homeless at times.
And this fall I participated in Occupy and stayed the night on a couple occasions and watched these young people who the cops are preying upon.

I was at celebrations of May Day yesterday and brought food for OccupyMN at Loring park. One of the other women asked if I had heard about state troopers providing drugs to young adults at Peavy Plaza, then taking them to a place to take the drugs, and then drop them back off at Peavy Plaza while they are high. Police, deputies, or troopers have also taken people from the jail and provided them with drugs and give them the option to drop them off at jail or Peavy Plaza. At first I didn't think the women had it right.. but today this video was put out by some independent journalists and this evening I was talking to another women who is active with Occupy and also a retired nurse. She hasn't seen the video but had also heard the stories from the young people. She informed me that one of the young men that took the drugs and was dropped off also has seizures and he seems to also have mental illness.

I sent the video and the following questions to my minneapolis state Senator and state Rep as well as the state Attorney General.

Do you know of the DRE program ?

Do you support enforcement agents from other counties picking up young people in the city of Minneapolis and providing them with drugs?

and dropping them off a city park while they are high ?

Will the state be held responsible if a person who has taken meth or other hard drugs flips out and kills or assaults someone at the plaza after then have been dropped off ?

Do you support our tax dollars being used in such a way?


I hope others send the video to their MN state reps and senators.

freshwest

(53,661 posts)
7. Excellent letter. It's 'human testing' 'without informed consent' not in their 'best interests.'
Thu May 3, 2012, 02:42 AM
May 2012

They are being treated as disposables. Could you cross post this in Occupy Underground? There is a similar thread about mental health patients being dropped off in downtown Denver. It was not as well documented as this, just remarks on it.

One of the replies had this in it, which is why I think what is being done here is so serious. I don't remember whose post it was but I saved it:

They've been brutalized by this corrupt system we call ''society,'' (as are we), and then drugged into a stupor. Thus subdued, they are let out amongst us -- the great unwashed. Where the cycle repeats.... This is ''the future'' if we don't change things..

“Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself.” ~George Orwell

“There will be in the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution.” ~Aldous Huxley

'The two greatest visions of a future dystopia were George Orwell’s “1984” and Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World.” The debate, between those who watched our descent towards corporate totalitarianism, was who was right. Would we be, as Orwell wrote, dominated by a repressive surveillance and security state that used crude and violent forms of control? Or would we be, as Huxley envisioned, entranced by entertainment and spectacle, captivated by technology and seduced by profligate consumption to embrace our own oppression? It turns out Orwell and Huxley were both right. Huxley saw the first stage of our enslavement. Orwell saw the second.'' ~Chris Hedges

 

jerseyjack

(1,361 posts)
9. Maybe the cops have John Yoo types of paper saying it is ok to do this.
Thu May 3, 2012, 07:12 AM
May 2012

But are the cops licensed to dispense drugs?

annm4peace

(6,119 posts)
10. Incase you can 't play the video
Thu May 3, 2012, 10:33 AM
May 2012

Here is the link on the Occupy MN website.

http://www.occupymn.org/2012/05/minnesota-state-patrol-dre-program-targets-occupy-minneapolis/



I'm thinking a bunch of us older women, some Vets for Peace, and maybe a couple of clergy should show up unannounced at the
"testing center' that is a Dept of Transportation maintence center just off a busy road and nearby freeway.

I go past it all the time and I wondered why there where groups of enforcement cars..

patrice

(47,992 posts)
11. Don't know about the drug connection, but there were people around our occupy who
Thu May 3, 2012, 12:20 PM
May 2012

said that the police or someone else were dropping people off there.

I know I personally wondered how longstanding homeless persons, from 20+ miles away, people who knew absolutely nothing about who we were, what we WERE trying to do, and what OWS is, somehow all just decided to join us, but almost none of whom ever went to GAs or work groups or marches or anything else we did.

Maybe someone mistakenly thought we could help these people.

I agree that the revolution MUST be ABOUT them, but we couldn't provide what they needed and, unfortunately, they ran a bunch of light-weights, a.k.a. the bourgeoise, off, so what you have left now is pretty much co-opted by the "Let them all suffer and/or die, so we can start over the 'right' way" crowd.

Maybe that wouldn't have happened if Labor had shown up to balance things out a bit, but our group was significantly hostile to Labor and established Labor couldn't stand the struggle or the mess.

annm4peace

(6,119 posts)
13. all day long the video made more and more sites and news outlets.
Thu May 3, 2012, 11:15 PM
May 2012

"The video report was put together by local independent media activists and members of Communities United Against Police Brutality. In a summary of their findings, the journalists say they believe young people hanging out near Peavey Plaza were targeted as subjects because getting them intoxicated is a way for police to "discredit and disrupt the Occupy movement."

it really expanded through out the day. I kept googling every 2 hours and more and more sites at it on.. I saw it go from Occupy MN.. to city pages, to Daily Kos, to Raw Story, then Huffington Post at the same time getting on Star Tribune (I didn't like their write up) and MPR.

http://www.occupymn.org/2012/05/minnesota-state-patrol-dre-program-targets-occupy-minneapolis/

ttp://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2012/05/minnesota_police_giving_peavy_plaza_occupy-ers_drugs_as_part_of_impairment_study_report_says_video.php

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/03/minnesota-police-give-drugs-impairment-study_n_1475291.html

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/05/02/1088315/-Minnesota-State-Patrol-DPS-target-Occupy-Minneapolis-with-drugs-and-addicts

http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/story/18135824/occupy-protestors-claim-officers-gave-them-drugs#.T6NDv431XeA.twitter

i just saw this..

http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2012/05/state_patrol_looking_into_occupy_drug_allegations_mpls_police_claim_no_involvement.php

14. Lived in fear.
Tue May 8, 2012, 01:47 AM
May 2012

Myself and small family of three moved to Wabasha MN (drug hub) several years back only to find about 60 percent of the local townspeople are either living in drug world or fear. NEVER report drug activity to the local PD as they in turn will report you to the dealers, it happened to us and we had to move. I look back and feel ashamed of how I had to back down from their threats. As to any response from anyone here on this post that identifies them selfs as someone who would like to "help" as to giving them information about Wabasha? I say GO TO HELL as I know who you are and stay away from my family.

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